Method and system for the remediation of contaminated earth from hazardous substances in a batch-wise ex-situ on-site manner

ABSTRACT

Method and system for the remediation of contaminated earth from hazardous substances in a batch-wise ex-situ on site manner. At least one mobile earth moving equipment, at lest one mobile tumbler reactor and at least one liquid-solid separator are organised at a location in the proximity of the contaminated site. Contaminated earth portions are collected from the contaminated site batch by batch in the mobile earth moving equipment and transferred to the mobile tumbler reactor at the location. The contaminated earth portions in the mobile tumbler reactor are dosed with cleaning agents and water washed in the reactor under agitation or tumbling. The mixture of water washed earth portions and wash water with cleaning agents transferred into the liquid-solid separator and the wash water with the cleaning agents is separated from the mixture in the separator. The cleaned earth portions in the separator are transferred into the earth moving equipment, transported back to the contaminated site and deposited at the contaminated site until the entire contaminated earth at the contaminated site is remedied.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to a method and system for the remediation ofcontaminated earth from hazardous substances in a batch-wise ex-situon-site manner.

The term ex-situ on site as used in this specification is intended tomean not directly at the contaminated site but in the proximity of thesite.

The term contaminated site as used in this specification includescontaminated beaches, industrial or commercial sites or historical orarcheologically important sites, wetland, ecologically orenvironmentally congested places or the like loaded with toxic orhazardous pollutants (substances or materials or wastes) like petroleumproducts including free oils, petroleum oil fractions, petroleum fuels,petroleum feed stock based chemicals, fractionated pure solvents andmixtures and other organic and inorganic pollutants like persistent andtrace toxic pollutants, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and/ortheir intermediates and toxic raw materials, heavy metals,organo-metallic complexes, paints, pigments, dyes, fine chemicals,residues from organic and inorganic chemical processing agents causingdamage to health, environment, ecology or property as well as weatheredand naturally altered products and by-products of the above pollutants.

The term contaminated earth, as used in this specification, includescontaminated matrix of soil, sand, silt, sediments, aquifer solids,slush, pebbles, stones, shells, aggregates, weeds or combinationsthereof.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Environment is getting more and more polluted and contaminated day byday with the release of hazardous substances including toxic substancesor materials and wastes into the environment. Environmental pollution iscausing not only irreparable damage to the flora or fauna and the marinelife but also forcing climatic changes. It is becoming a matter of graveconcern to the entire world. There are various reasons for theenvironmental pollution like effluents and wastes being generated due toindustrialisation and urbanization and accidental spillage and/orcareless release or dumping of oil and other petroleum products,industrial effluents or wastes, sludges, residential wastes or the likeinto the environment or water bodies. Beaches are getting polluted withspills of petroleum products like crude oils, fuels or solvents orwastes from ships or ship repairing or dismantling activities orrecycling activities in ocean, in ports, harbours or docks or fromship-wrecks or from busting or leakage of oil pipelines.

Contamination of soils, sediments and sands with hazardous or toxicchemicals and wastes is becoming an event of frequent occurrence and themagnitude of its adverse impact is ever increasing. Pollution isbecoming a major problem in oceans, on coasts and beaches, in wetlandsand surface water bodies, underground aquifers and industrial andcommercial sites and needs effective solution for the survival and wellbeing of the habitat.

Accidental spills of oily petroleum products into the sea continue tooccur in various parts of the world from time to time creating havoc.For example, the Exxon Valdez incident in Prince Williams Sound, Alaska,in March, 1989, the oil spill from oil wells in Kuwait that caused fireduring Iraq-Kuwait-USA war during late 1989 and the BP (BritishPetroleum) oil spill that occurred recently. BP oil spill reportedlypoured over one million tonnes of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico inApril, 2010. Recently, off the Mumbai coast, oil spilled from the ship“MSC Chitra” after collision with the ship “m v Khalijia-III” onSaturday morning, 7 Aug., 2010. An alarming level of oil got spilledinto the ocean (nearly 1,000 tonnes) and subsequently was found in thesands on the beaches in Mumbai, India and at Sasvane, Alibag and Uran(all towns in the coastal District of Raigad near Mumbai), creating adisaster for fishermen and fish habitats. Within four days, oil alsoreached the shores of the Gharapuri Island, near Mumbai, which hosts thearcheologically important Elephanta Caves. Several acres of mangroveforests including newly germinated and growing saplings of mangroveswere covered with free floating oil and weathered products of spilledoil.

Remediation or decontamination of sites contaminated with pollutants hasbeen an active area of research in the field of environmental scienceand engineering, especially during the past three decades. Because ofthe ever increasing threat of pollution, the research in this area isbecoming more intensified and there is an urgent need to developtechnological solutions to a variety of contamination situationsresulting from causative factors as stated earlier. There are two waysin which site remediation is addressed, namely in-situ on site andex-situ on site solutions based on physico-chemical treatments. Anotherway of dealing with the problem is biological treatment.

In the case of in-situ on site clean-up operations undertaken by theExxon Corporation in 1989 in Prince Williams Sound, Alaska, USA, hotwater jets mixed with oil dispersing chemicals were sprayed underpressure at the site of contamination. However, the above procedurecould merely transfer free oil coating on surfaces like those ofboulders, aggregates, pebbles, jetties or piers. As a result, dislodgedoil and weathered oily residues got deposited onto superficial layers ofsandy beaches, mud flats and coastal sediments and eventually percolatedinto deeper layers of sediments creating additional secondary pollution.Therefore, efforts were also made to skim-off floating oil from thewater surface. The procedure has been only partially successful in theclean up operations thereby leaving most of the oil pollution unattendedin the marine environment. Clearly, there has not been any effectivesand or sediment or silt cleaning technology or method available fordecontamination of pollutant-loaded earth solids. Use of jets of hotwater and chemical solutions to wash and clean surfaces as statedearlier, only aggravated the problem of contamination of sands,sediments and silts on the coasts.

In the events of oil spills, bacteria present in the coastal silt,sediments and sands do get eventually acclimated to the pollutedenvironment and develop ability to denature the pollutants in due courseof time as is evident from studies conducted on several species ofbacteria and their strains isolated from the polluted coastal sites.Because of this adaptation of the bacteria, in fact, the native floraand fauna got affected on the polluted marine coast and the entireecosystem got altered.

Bioremediation of contaminated sites was carried out using specific cellcultures containing active beneficial species isolated and selected fromthe polluted sites and cultivated in the laboratory. Bioremedy was alsotried by spraying genetically modified microorganisms andenzyme-mediated formulations prepared in the laboratory or cultured andformulated using biotechnological methods. The degradation rates fortargeted pollutants in open natural systems with the help of microbescultivated in laboratory environment is known to be slow and compromiseddue to the interference of other microbial flora at the contaminatedsite. The microbes also may not reach the intricate places where thepollutants have gotten diffused to and microbial population may not getsustained in the open environment. As a result, a critical concentrationof the desirable microorganism or desirable mixed culture of aconsortium of microorganisms remains so low that it does not producedesirable results and it fails to create ecological niche for itself.

The micro-organisms selected from naturally occurring contaminated sitesand cultivated for real-life bio-remediation operations or designermicrobes (genetically modified to denature a given pollutant) if appliedin real-life situations in the so-called open systems may facedifficulty in performing in the presence of high concentrations of oilsand weathered oil-products at a given contaminated site. The highconcentrations of pollutants may prove to be toxic to them and may proveto be detrimental to their community.

The various in-situ on-site treatments as stated above employ dedicatedtreatment plants installed in-situ onsite and have shown limited successin real situations and have several limitations. Because of thenon-homogeneity of soil, sediment or sand, the ability to engineer thecontaminated site and to achieve uniform cleaning of contaminated areasis reduced. As a result the in-situ techniques are not very efficientand effective. Cost and erection time for the plants is very huge.Invariably multiple installations of in-situ onsite treatment plants arerequired as contaminated beaches extend to tens or hundreds ofkilometers. Because of this, the cost of in-situ techniques ends uptypically becoming prohibitive and, therefore, in realistic situationsthey may not be economically viable.

Earlier research has described the effectiveness of desorption forremoving contaminants from sand or soil [Rao, B H, Swaminathan, R., andAsolekar, S. R. (2001). Washing of Marine Coastal Sand in a BatchReactor: Sorption and Desorption of BTEX. J Air & Waste Manage Assoc.,vol. 51, pp. 1043-1059; and Rao, B H and Asolekar, S. R. (2001). QSARModels to Predict Effect of Ionic Strength on Sorption of ChlorinatedBenzenes and Phenols at Sediment-Water Interface. Water Research, vol.35, pp. 3391-3401].

In reality, however, such techniques envisage transportation of pollutedmaterials from the contaminated sites to the reactors erected at alocation for decontamination and transportation of cleaned sand or soilback to the contamination sites. Such techniques require dedicatedtreatment plants at the location and huge sand and sediment washingreactors and solids—wastewater separation devices permanently erectedand installed at the location. As a result, the cost is increasedsubstantially. The reactors require massive foundations. Provision ofeffective foundation for the reactors would be a difficult task in sandybeaches or industrially or commercially contaminated sites.

Transportation of huge quantities of excavated soil from the site ofexcavation to the reactors and back to the excavation site is veryexpensive and cumbersome. Further, installation of the treatment plantat one location alone would not be sufficient to provide remediationservice to a large area as contaminated beaches extend to a longdistance.

Alternative is to have multiple treatment plants which will increase thecost correspondingly. A stationary facility for remediation is also notvery effective and useful since accidents of spillage of oil may happenanywhere. Also, development of dedicated reactors and washing plantsinvolves capital investment which can be amortized only if the reactorsand plants are utilized to the optimum. Erection time for such plants isalso very long.

It is evident from the above state of the technology of environmentalremediation that there are no effective methods and equipments availablefor addressing and managing disasters like marine oil spills causingcontamination of sandy beaches and coastal ecosystems or land-baseddisasters created by large scale spills of toxic and hazardous chemicalsor disasters caused by the negligent disposal of toxic and hazardouswastes into water bodies and dump-sites. There is thus need foreffective, economical and easy to implement method and system to remedyor decontaminate polluted environment from hazardous substances.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to the invention there is provided a method for theremediation of contaminated earth from hazardous substances in abatch-wise ex-situ on site manner comprising the steps of operations oforganizing at least one mobile earth moving equipment, at least onemobile tumbler reactor and at least one liquid-solid separator at alocation in the proximity of the contaminated site, collecting batch bybatch contaminated earth portions from the contaminated site in themobile earth moving equipment, transporting the contaminated earthportions to the location and transferring the contaminated earthportions to the mobile tumbler reactor, dosing the contaminated earthportions in the mobile tumbler reactor with cleaning agents and waterwashing the contaminated earth portions in the reactor under agitationor tumbling, transferring the mixture of water washed earth portions andwash water with cleaning agents in the mobile tumbler reactor into theliquid-solid separator and separating the wash water with the cleaningagents from the mixture in the separator, transferring the cleaned earthportions in the separator into the earth moving equipment, transportingthe cleaned earth portions back to the contaminated site and depositingthe cleaned earth portions at the contaminated site until the entirecontaminated earth at the contaminated site is remedied and controllingthe logistics of carrying out the steps of operations.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the method furthercomprises the step of operation of organizing at least one watertreatment plant at the location and subjecting the wash water from themixture in the liquid-solid separator to effluent treatment techniquesto separate clean water from the hazardous substances in the wash water.Alternately, the wash water may be hauled to wastewater treatmentfacility and treated.

According to the invention there is also provided a system forremediation of contaminated earth from hazardous substances in abatch-wise ex-situ on-site manner comprising at least one mobile earthmoving equipment, at least one mobile tumbler reactor and at least oneliquid-solid separator organised at a location in the proximity of thecontaminated site and a controller for controlling the logistics ofoperations of the mobile earth moving equipment, mobile tumbler reactorand liquid-solid separator, the mobile earth moving equipment beingdeployed for collecting batch by batch contaminated earth portions fromthe contaminated site, transporting the contaminated earth portions tothe location, transferring the contaminated earth portions to the mobiletumbler reactor, receiving the cleaned earth portions from theliquid-solid separator and transporting the cleaned earth portions backto the contaminated site and depositing the contaminated earth portionsat the contaminated site until the entire contaminated earth is remediedcompletely, the mobile tumbler reactor being deployed for having thecontaminated earth portions dosed with cleaning agents and water washedunder agitation or tumbling and for transferring the mixture of waterwashed earth portions and wash water with cleaning agents into theliquid-solid separator and the liquid-solid separator being deployed forseparating the wash water with cleaning agents from the cleaned earthportions and transferring the cleaned earth portions into the mobileearth moving equipment.

According to the invention there is also provided a system forremediation of contaminated earth from hazardous substances in abatch-wise ex-situ on-site manner comprising at least one mobile earthmoving equipment, at least one mobile tumbler reactor, at least oneliquid-solid separator and at least one wash water treatment plantorganised at a location in the proximity of the contaminated site and acontroller for controlling the logistics of operations of the mobileearth moving equipment, mobile tumbler reactor, liquid-solid separatorand wash water treatment plant, the mobile earth moving equipment beingdeployed for collecting batch by batch contaminated earth portions fromthe contaminated site, transporting the contaminated earth portions tothe location, transferring the contaminated earth portions to the mobiletumbler reactor, receiving the cleaned earth portions from theliquid-solid separator and transporting the cleaned earth portions backto the contaminated site and depositing the contaminated earth portionsat the contaminated site until the entire contaminated earth is remediedcompletely, the mobile tumbler reactor being deployed for having thecontaminated earth portions dosed with cleaning agents and water washedunder agitation or tumbling and for transferring the mixture of waterwashed earth portions and wash water with cleaning agents into theliquid-solid separator and the liquid-solid separator being deployed forseparating the wash water with cleaning agents from the cleaned earthportions and transferring the cleaned earth portions into the mobileearth moving equipment and the wash water with cleaning agents to thewash water treatment plant.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the controller comprises alogic circuit or processor configured and programmed to automaticallycontrol the logistics of operation of the earth moving equipment, mobiletumbler reactor and liquid-solid separator and wash water treatmentplant, if any.

According to another embodiment of the invention, the controller ismanually controlled or partly manually controlled and partlyautomatically controlled.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the wash water treatmentplant is connected to the mobile tumbler reactor for recycling the cleanwater as wash water into the reactor.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In order to improve the efficiency of the method and to reduce time forremediation, depending upon the extent and nature of contamination, themethod and system may include a plurality of earth moving equipments,tumbler reactors, liquid-solid separators and/or wash water treatmentplants. During operation of the system, the mobile earth movingequipments collect contaminated earth portions in batches from thecontaminated site and transport them to the location. The contaminatedearth portions are then transferred into the mobile tumbler reactorsandare dosed with cleaning agents and washed with water under agitation ortumbling.

The mixture of solids and wash water with cleaning agents is taken inthe liquid-solid separators and the cleaned solids are separated fromwash water with cleaning agents in the separators. The cleaned solidsare loaded into the earth moving equipments and transported back to thecontaminated site and deposited at the site at appropriate places untilthe entire contaminated site is remedied from the hazardous substances.

It may not be desirable or permissible to let the wash water into theenvironment without being treated. Therefore, it is preferable that thewash water is subjected to effluent treatment techniques to separateclean water from the hazardous substances. Accordingly, the method ofthe invention includes the step of subjecting the wash water from theseparators to water treatment techniques to separate clean water fromthe hazardous substances and the system of the invention includes ormore wash water treatment plants for such purpose. The wash watertreatment plant(s) may be installed at the location and may form a partof the system. The wash water treatment plant(s) may be connected to themobile tumbler reactors for recycling the clean water into the reactorsas wash water.

Alternatively, the wash water may be hauled or transported to effluentor wastewater treatment plants located elsewhere. It is also possible totreat the wash water fully or partially and recycle it for washing thecontaminated earth portions or reuse elsewhere or dispose of accordingto known water disposal procedures.

The wash water is subjected to treatments which are known effluenttreatment procedures and the water treatment plant(s) used are knowneffluent treatment plant(s). The treatment techniques and treatmentplants are selected depending upon the nature and chemical constitutionof the contaminants in the wash water. The residual matter obtained fromthe wash water treatment is further treated using treatment proceduresknown in the art for treatment of such residual matter. The resultingresidues are disposed of in accordance with known practices.

Modes of operation and operational parameters like batch time, number ofwashings with water and the number of dosing of cleaning agents willdepend on the extent and nature of contamination and will have to beselected. The number of dosing of cleaning agents and water washings maybe one or several. The dosing of cleaning agents and water washing maybe carried out simultaneously or sequentially. Alternatively dosing ofcleaning agents and water washing may be carried out in a cocurrentmanner or in a counter current manner in order to improve the washingefficiency. The water used for washing may be ambient temperature wateror warm/hot water depending upon the environmental conditions at thesite.

The cleaning agents to be used and the clean up or decontaminationstrategy to be employed will depend up on the nature of the contaminantsor pollutants and the extent and concentration of the contaminants orpollutants. The clean up procedures for the contaminated earth portionsin the reactors are based on known wastewater treatment procedures andmay include physio-chemical treatments.

The cleaning agents that may be used in the method of the invention maycomprise of commercially available detergents and/or soaps and mayinclude chemicals like alkyl benzene sulfonate, sodium dodecyl sulfate(SDC), sodium lauryl sulfate, ethoxylate (EO), ethoxylated alkylphenols, anionic sulfonated alkyl esters, sodium tetradecyl sulfate(4-undeconal,7-ethyl-2-methyl-,sulfate, sodium salt), diethylene glycolethyl ether (ethanol, 2-(2-ethoxyethoxy)-), mixture of ethoxylated fattyacids, natural surfactants like Sapindus mukorossi obtained from fruitalong with chemicals like sodium hydroxide (NaOH) which acts as achelating agent or hydroxyl-2-cyclodextrin (HPCD) used to reduce thesorption and enhance the transport of several low polarity organiccompounds. Aqueous acidic solutions also be used along with water duringsoil washing. The examples are for illustration purposes and actual usemay be decided from case to case upon conducting treatability trials forachieving a prescribed target of clean-up. The recipe of clean-upsolutions (proportions of surfactants and other chemicals) and otheroperating parameters of reactor such as cycles of clean-up routines,solids-to-water ratios, batch cleaning time or temperature will varyfrom case to case.

The mobile earth moving equipments used in the invention are thoseavailable for earth moving and handling operations and having space forloading contaminated earth portions and include earth moving excavators.

The mobile tumbler reactors are those generally used for mixing liquidswith solids like truck mixers equipped with tumblers used for mixing anddelivering cement-concrete to the construction site, revolving drumtruck mixers or mobile or portable devices having vibrating, rotating,stirring, gyrating, aerating, gas/air sparging, shaking or sonicatingtype mixing arrangements. However, the dosing of the contaminated earthportions with cleaning agents and washing with water need not be underagitation or tumbling if so desired. Therefore, such dosing and washingare also within the scope of the invention.

The liquid-solid separators used in the invention are those availablefor liquid-solid separation and may be mobile or mounted on wheels ormounted on make-shift temporary foundations. The mobile or portableliquid-solid separators are, for example, centrifuges, settling deviceshaving slanted plates or slanted bundle of tubes or slantedhoney-comb-like settling arrangements. The liquid-solid separators maybe settlers or thickeners or devices of cylindrical, rectangular,section of cone or any other geometrical shape to facilitate settling.

The above equipments are used as such or with minor changes by way ofadaptation for use in the invention like choice of material ofconstruction, protective paints and liners to improve their durability.Adaptations also may be required fortracking/monitoring/qualifying/quantifying the extent ofdecontamination/clean-up of solids and/or liquids encountered in theprocess of remediation.

According to the invention, the mobile earth moving equipments, mobiletumbler reactors and liquid-solid separators and wash water treatmentplant(s), if any are configured and logistically operated to clean-upthe environmental contamination in a batch-wise ex-situ onsite manner.The system configuration of the invention is not a dedicated one but atemporarily organised one. Deployment of such equipments at one locationor at multiple locations and operations of the equipments in a logisticmanner is very convenient and easy to carry out. Because of theequipments being easily available and being low cost, they can be easilyorganised or mobilised at a single location or multiple locations so asto carry out the cleaning operation very fast and in a very costeffective and efficient manner.

The equipments also can be easily dispersed or disposed off after theclean-up operation. It becomes possible only because the variousequipments proposed to be used are normally meant for their respectiveknown purposes and are to be organized only when the need arises.

However, they are, rugged and robust in construction to work in sandy,muddy, silty, slippery, abrasive, wet, rough and bumpy surfaces andsurroundings and are easily available and can be easily mobilised andlogistically controlled within a short time.

According to the invention, proximity of the location of clean up to thecontamination site also renders the cleaning operation further easy andconvenient. Time for the cleaning operation is further reduced. Cleaningoperation is also efficient, effective and economical. The inventioneliminates huge dedicated plants and massive foundations otherwiserequired; thereby reducing costs substantially and eliminating erectiontime. Because of the batch-wise operation, the volumes to be handled ata time are small and the method can be easily and conveniently carriedout repeatedly till the desirable clean-up is achieved and it is simple.

At a given location on a contaminated site, in order to optimize the useof water and cleaning agents, contaminated solids are loaded in onereactor or multiple reactors and subjected to multiple washing cyclessuch that wash water from one washing cycle is systematicallytransferred sequentially to subsequent washing cycle. Because theequipments are mobile and easily available and because the equipmentscan be easily organised, the configuration of equipments can be movedfrom one location of contaminated site to another location to achieveclean-up at different locations of the contaminated site, especiallywhen the contaminated site is very large. The movement of the equipmentsconfiguration on the contaminated site ensures clean-up in a fast andeffective manner.

The various equipments are orchestrated in such a manner that the washwaters and cleaning agents used in the washing cycles are loaded in thereactors and separators in a systematic and sequential manner so as toachieve ex-situ on-site cleaning operation in an optimal manner whileminimizing use of water and cleaning agents during the cleaningoperation. The invention is especially suitable in an emergency oraccident like an oil spillage.

Modifications of the invention apparent or obvious to persons skilled inthe art upon reading this specification are to be construed andunderstood to be within the scope of the invention. For instance, it maybe possible to carry out the method of the invention in a continuous orsemicontinuous mode. Instead of water, organic solvents may be used forwashing. Water is preferred for washing for considerations of cost andeasy availability in plenty. Such variations of the invention are to beconstrued and understood to be within the scope of the invention.

1. A method for the remediation of contaminated earth from hazardoussubstances in a batch-wise ex-situ on site manner at a location in theproximity of the contaminated site, the said method effectivelyeliminating huge dedicated plants and massive foundations, and usesequipment that are mobile and easily available comprising use of: (a) atleast one mobile earth moving equipment (b) at least one mobile tumblerreactor and (c) at least one liquid-solid separator.
 2. A method ofclaim 1 for the remediation of contaminated earth from hazardoussubstances comprising the steps of (a) collecting batch by batchcontaminated earth portions from the contaminated site in the mobileearth moving equipment, (b) transporting the contaminated earth portionsto the location and transferring the contaminated earth portions to themobile tumbler reactor, (c) dosing the contaminated earth portions inthe mobile tumbler reactor with cleaning agents and water washing thecontaminated earth portions in the reactor under agitation or tumbling,(d) transferring the mixture of water washed earth portions and washwater with cleaning agents in the mobile tumbler reactor into theliquid-solid separator and separating the wash water with the cleaningagents from the mixture in the separator, (e) transferring the cleanedearth portions in the separator into the earth moving equipment, (f)transporting the cleaned earth portions back to the contaminated siteand depositing the cleaned earth portions at the contaminated site untilthe entire contaminated earth at the contaminated site is remedied, and(g) controlling the logistics of carrying out the steps of operations.3. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the logistics of carryingout the steps of operations are controlled automatically or manually orpartly manually and partly automatically.
 4. The method as claimed inclaim 2, which further comprises the step of operation of organizing atleast one water treatment plant at the location and subjecting the washwater from the mixture in the liquid-solid separator to effluenttreatment techniques to separate clean water from the hazardoussubstances in the wash water.
 5. The method as claimed in claim 4,wherein the clean water is recycled to the mobile tumbler reactor aswash water.
 6. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the dosing ofthe contaminated earth portions with cleaning agents and water washingof the contaminated earth portions are carried out simultaneously orsequentially or in a concurrent or counter current manner.
 7. A systemfor remediation of contaminated earth from hazardous substances in abatch-wise ex-situ on-site manner at a location in the proximity of thecontaminated site, the said system effectively eliminating hugededicated plants and massive foundations, and uses equipment that aremobile and easily available comprising use of: (a) at least one mobileearth moving equipment (b) at least one mobile tumbler reactor and (c)at least one liquid-solid separator.
 8. A system of claim 7 forremediation of contaminated earth from hazardous substances comprising(a) a controller for controlling the logistics of operations of themobile earth moving equipment, mobile tumbler reactor and liquid-solidseparator, (b) the mobile earth moving equipment being deployed forcollecting batch by batch contaminated earth portions from thecontaminated site, (c) transporting the contaminated earth portions tothe location, (d) transferring the contaminated earth portions to themobile tumbler reactor, (e) receiving the cleaned earth portions fromthe liquid-solid separator and transporting the cleaned earth portionsback to the contaminated site and (f) depositing the contaminated earthportions at the contaminated site until the entire contaminated earth isremedied completely, (g) the mobile tumbler reactor being deployed forhaving the contaminated earth portions dosed with cleaning agents andwater washed under agitation or tumbling and for transferring themixture of water washed earth portions and wash water with cleaningagents into the liquid-solid separator and the liquid-solid separatorbeing deployed for separating the wash water with cleaning agents fromthe cleaned earth portions and transferring the cleaned earth portionsinto the mobile earth moving equipment.
 9. The system as claimed inclaim 8, wherein the controller is a logic circuit or processorconfigured and programmed to automatically control the logistics ofoperations of the earth moving equipment, mobile tumbler reactor andliquid-solid separator.
 10. The system as claimed in claim 7, whereinthe controller is manually controlled or partly manually controlled andparty automatically controlled.
 11. The system as claimed in claim 7,wherein the liquid-solid separator is mobile or stationary.
 12. A systemfor remediation of contaminated earth from hazardous substances in abatch-wise ex-situ on-site manner at a location in the proximity of thecontaminated site, the said system effectively eliminating hugededicated plants and massive foundations, and uses equipment that aremobile and easily available comprising use of: (a) at least one mobileearth moving equipment (b) at least one mobile tumbler reactor and (c)at least one liquid-solid separator and at least one wash watertreatment plant.
 13. A system of claim 12 for remediation ofcontaminated earth from hazardous substances organised at a location inthe proximity of the contaminated site comprising a controller forcontrolling the logistics of operations of the mobile earth movingequipment, mobile tumbler reactor, liquid-solid separator and wash watertreatment plant, wherein: (a) the mobile earth moving equipment beingdeployed for collecting batch by batch contaminated earth portions fromthe contaminated site, transporting the contaminated earth portions tothe location, transferring the contaminated earth portions to the mobiletumbler reactor, receiving the cleaned earth portions from theliquid-solid separator and transporting the cleaned earth portions backto the contaminated site and depositing the contaminated earth portionsat the contaminated site until the entire contaminated earth is remediedcompletely, (b) the mobile tumbler reactor being deployed for having thecontaminated earth portions dosed with cleaning agents and water washedunder agitation or tumbling and for transferring the mixture of waterwashed earth portions and wash water with cleaning agents into theliquid-solid separator, and (c) the liquid-solid separator beingdeployed for separating the wash water with cleaning agents from thecleaned earth portions and transferring the cleaned earth portions intothe mobile earth moving equipment and the wash water with cleaningagents to the wash water treatment plant.
 14. The system as claimed inclaim 12, wherein the controller comprises a logic circuit or processorconfigured and programmed to automatically control the logistics ofoperation of the earth moving equipment, mobile tumbler reactor,liquid-solid separator and wash water treatment plant.
 15. The system asclaimed in claim 12, wherein the controller is manually controlled orpartly manually controlled and partly automatically controlled.
 16. Thesystem as claimed in claim 12, wherein the wash water treatment plant isconnected to the mobile tumbler reactor for recycling the clean water aswash water into the reactor.
 17. The system as claimed in claim 12,wherein the liquid-solid separator is mobile or stationary.